A team of researchers has identified a new species of marine reptile that would have been at the top of the food chain in the Jurassic era from fossil remains in Scotland.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh say the creature looked like a cross between a giant dolphin and crocodile. It lived in the early to middle Jurassic era for about 170 million years.

“This is a totally new species,” said Stephen Brusatte, a doctor of vertebrate palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh. “It was a giant creature that would have been about the size of a motorboat or about four-metres long.”

Brusatte was on the team of researchers that worked on the skulls, teeth, vertebrae and an upper arm bone, all of which were discovered approximately 56 years ago.

The creature, dubbed “Dearcmhara shawcrossi,” lived for about 170 million years during the mid-Jurassic era.

In its time in the depths, it would have eaten fish and other reptiles, Brusatte said.

“It technically isn’t a dinosaur, because dinosaurs only lived on land, but could be considered its cousin,” Brusatte said.

“It would have been at the top of the food chain during its time,” he added. “It would have filled the role of sharks or that of killer whales today.”

The researched dubbed the new species Dearcmhara, a Scottish Gaelic term meaning marine lizard, and shawcrossi, after the fossil hunter who discovered the bones.

The bones were found by Bryan Shawcross in 1959 in Bearreraig Bay on the Isle of Skye. Shawcross kept the bones in his own private collection for decades before donating them to National Museums Scotland.

Brusatte hopes that naming the new species after the person who discovered the fossils will welcome other amateur collectors to share their discoveries with academics.

“What has changed in the last decade is that private and amateur collectors and researchers are pooling their resources together, leading to new discoveries,” Brusatte said. They would happily name any fossils in the future that are donated to research after the amateur collectors that find them.

“Scotland is one of the best places in the world for finding fossils,” claimed Brusatte.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/12/new-species-of-marine-reptile-a-cross-between-a-giant-dolphin-and-crocodile-identified-from-scottish-fossils/feed/0stddearcmhara_wide-725d6f729db26721e7bec2c89bdfd8238b4307a4-s800-c85Live Canadian lobsters mysteriously turn up in U.K. traps … probably after being illegally ‘liberated’ into the North Seahttp://news.nationalpost.com/2014/12/04/live-canadian-lobsters-mysteriously-turn-up-in-u-k-traps-probably-after-being-illegally-liberated-into-the-north-sea/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/12/04/live-canadian-lobsters-mysteriously-turn-up-in-u-k-traps-probably-after-being-illegally-liberated-into-the-north-sea/#commentsThu, 04 Dec 2014 23:18:01 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=551327

Live Canadian lobsters are mysteriously turning up in U.K. traps, and British fishermen and biologists suspect that the imported crustaceans are being illegally “liberated” into the North Sea.

“I really hope Canadian lobsters don’t become established here,” said Magnus Johnson, a marine biologist at the University of Hull, in an email to the National Post.

Canadian lobsters are faster, stronger and more aggressive than their Old World counterparts, meaning the foreigners could cause widespread ecological damage if they are allowed to get a toehold in British waters.

On Monday, U.K. fishing authorities came upon a female North American lobster in a holding tank in Hartlepool, a town on England’s northeast coast. Earlier this year, another foreign lobster showed up across the North Sea in Gullmar Fjord, Sweden.

“They are found occasionally near Bridlington [a shellfishing port on the coast of Yorkshire],” Mike Cohen with the local Holderness Fishing Industry Group told The Telegraph.

He added that local suspicion pointed to the creatures being dropped overboard by passing cruise ships: “Passengers buy a lobster from the live tanks and then ask the waiter to throw them overboard rather than eating it.”

“Another possibility is that they are escaping or being discarded from the premises of restaurants which import the lobsters live,” Mr. Cohen told the National Post.

The exact species is the Homarus americanus, a lobster found exclusively on the eastern coast of North America. A smaller cousin, the Homarus gammarus, makes its home in European waters.

Although the foreign specimens could just as easily have come from Maine, the Brits commonly refer to the animal as a “Canadian lobster.”

In addition, the U.K. happens to currently be awash in a flood of cheap lobsters from Canada.

Bolstered by a strong pound and a bumper Canadian harvest, British supermarkets are currently selling Maritime lobsters for as little as $9 CDN apiece.

The U.K’s Wildlife and Countryside Act makes it illegal to release non-native species into British lands and waters, but foreign lobsters have been turning up off the English coast ever since the U.K. ramped up air imports of live Atlantic shellfish in the 1980s.

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A 2012 study found that between 1988 and 2011, 26 North American lobsters turned up off the U.K. coast. Although, noted the report, that number is “almost certainly an underestimate.”

U.K. fishermen and biologists remain concerned that aggressive, disease-ridden Canadians could do damage to European crustaceans.

“I think it’s a good idea to study them, as they could be giving English lobsters a disease,” one fisherman, Gary Redshaw, told the Yorkshire Post last week. Mr. Redshaw’s own traps unearthed a Canadian lobster off Bridlington in 2012.

Paul Stebbing, a U.K.-based researcher on non-native aquatic species, told the National Post in an email that “American lobsters do pose a threat to European stocks.”

“Not only could they potentially out-compete European lobsters for resources such as food and space, but act as vectors for novel diseases such as shell disease,” he said.

There is even the possibility that Canadians could breed with their European cousins, creating lobster hybrids.

As for what is driving this mysterious trans-Atlantic movement lobster migration, the culprit is most likely the escape or release of lobsters destined for European dinner tables.

As Mr. Stebbing noted, it is highly unlikely that the crustaceans could have made the trek on their own.

“There is obviously a lot of ocean to cover for them to make their way over here under their own steam, especially in the numbers we have been finding them in.”

Wherever they are coming from, fishermen have not hit the panic button as yet. Mr. Cohen, for one, called the chances of a full-scale infestation “extremely slim.”

“If any more lobsters are reported we will look at them,” said the University of Hull’s Magnus Johnson.

He added, “I’m very keen to subject both species to a comparative experiment that involves a frying pan, garlic and butter.”

About 13.5-billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as the Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features of our universe is called physics.

About 300,000 years after their appearance, matter and energy started to coalesce into complex structures, called atoms, which then combined into molecules. The story of atoms, molecules and their interactions is called chemistry.

The Cognitive Revolution kick-started things for us 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up 12,000 years ago. And now the Scientific Revolution could end history as we know it

About 3.8-billion years ago, on a planet called Earth, certain molecules combined to form particularly large and intricate structures called organisms. The story of organisms is called biology.

About 70,000 years ago, organisms belonging to the species Homo sapiens started to form even more elaborate structures called cultures. The subsequent development of these human cultures is called history.

Three important revolutions shaped the course of history: the Cognitive Revolution kick-started history about 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up about 12,000 years ago. The Scientific Revolution, which got under way only 500 years ago, may well end history and start something completely different. This book tells the story of how these three revolutions have affected humans and their fellow organisms.

There were humans long before there was history. Animals much like modern humans first appeared about 2.5 million years ago. But for countless generations, they did not stand out from the myriad other organisms with which they shared their habitats.

On a hike in East Africa 2-million years ago, you might well have encountered a familiar cast of human characters: anxious mothers cuddling their babies and clutches of carefree children playing in the mud; temperamental youths chafing against the dictates of society and weary elders who just wanted to be left in peace; chest-thumping machos trying to impress the local beauty and wise old matriarchs who already had seen it all. These archaic humans loved, played, formed close friendships and competed for status and power — but so did chimpanzees, baboons and elephants. There was nothing special about them. Nobody, least of all humans themselves, had any inkling that their descendants would one day walk on the moon, split the atom, fathom the genetic code and write history books. The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans is that they were insignificant animals with no more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish.

Biologists classify organisms into species. Animals are said to belong to the same species if they tend to mate with each other, giving birth to fertile offspring. Horses and donkeys have a recent common ancestor and share many physical traits. But they show little sexual interest in one another. They will mate if induced to do so — but their offspring, called mules, are sterile. Mutations in donkey DNA can therefore never cross over to horses, or vice versa. The two types of animals are consequently considered two distinct species, moving along separate evolutionary paths. By contrast, a bulldog and a spaniel may look very different, but they are members of the same species, sharing the same DNA pool. They will happily mate and their puppies will grow up to pair off with other dogs and produce more puppies.

Species that evolved from a common ancestor are bunched together under the heading “genus” (plural: genera). Lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars are different species within the genus Panthera. Biologists label organisms with a two-part Latin name, genus followed by species. Lions, for example, are called Panthera leo, the species leo of the genus Panthera. Presumably, everyone reading this book is a Homo sapiens — the species sapiens (wise) of the genus Homo (man).

Genera in their turn are grouped into families, such as the cats (lions, cheetahs, house cats), the dogs (wolves, foxes, jackals) and the elephants (elephants, mammoths, mastodons). All members of a family trace their lineage back to a founding matriarch or patriarch. All cats, for example, from the smallest house kitten to the most ferocious lion, share a common feline ancestor who lived about 25-million years ago.

When he was gunned down in Mexico Saturday, Thomas Gisby owned more than $2M in real estate. But a decade ago he filed for bankruptcy, claiming he had no choice after unfair tax assessments[caption id="attachment_167682" align="alignright" width="620" caption="Les Bazso/Postmedia News"]<img src="http://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/png0428nmexicokilling00071.jpg&quot; alt="" title="Chief Superintendent Dan Malo announces that Thomas Gisby was killed in Mexico at a press conference in Surrey Saturday." width="620" height="322" class="size-full wp-image-167682" />[/caption]
VANCOUVER — When he was gunned down in Mexico Saturday, B.C. native and crime boss Thomas Gisby was a wealthy man with real estate assets in the Lower Mainland valued at more than $2 million.
But a decade ago he filed for bankruptcy, claiming he had no choice after unfair tax assessments by the Canada Revenue Agency.
Police say Gisby was an international drug trafficker with cartel connections in both Mexico and Colombia that allowed him to rank at the highest level of Canadian organized crime.
But it likely was his association with a violent mid-level gang known as the Dhak-Duhre group that got Gisby gunned down at a Nuevo Vallarta Starbucks just after he ordered his morning coffee.
[np-related]
<div style="font-family:times;width:200px;float:right;text-align:center;color:#3366ff;font-weight:bold;margin:10px;padding:15px;font-size:25px;line-height:1.4em;">'If you are a gangster, you better be looking over your shoulder'
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Supt. Tom McCluskie, head of the Gang Task Force, said Monday that police are bracing for possible retaliation and are hoping to stay a step ahead of the violence.
“Every time we have someone this high-profile killed, there is a spike in activity,” McCluskie said. “If you are a gangster, you better be looking over your shoulder.”
Gisby, 47, had dealt for years with the Hells Angels and other B.C. gangsters wanting to import drugs into the province.
But he claimed to be a failed businessman with no other option but bankruptcy in a 2004 affidavit filed in B.C. Supreme Court.
“My bankruptcy was caused by the sudden failure of my business accompanied by very large tax assessments made against (me) by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency,” Gisby wrote in November 2004. “The assessments against me were based on CCRA’s presumptions that I had failed to account for income taxes payable by me over a number of years, which I deny.”
Police say Gisby was a masterful businessman when it came to the drug trade, handling delicate deals with volatile international brokers.
But in his affidavit, Gisby claimed: “I am a poor businessman and have very little education and have difficulties in maintaining records and so on. In other words, I have no head for business and I found the administration of my business to become ever more difficult and complicated as time went on.”
He said he was stuck “working part-time for various friends” and in a business run by his common-law wife called Illusions Sound Custom Car Audio Ltd.
“I am reluctant to seek full-time employment with anyone else because my experience has been that CCRA have had me under extensive surveillance and I do not want to cause difficulties for anyone who employs me,” Gisby said.
But Brian Fowles, then a collection officer with the CCRA, claimed in court documents that Gisby had been hiding his cash and was indebted to the federal government for almost $1.5 million for income earned between 1994 and 1999.
“My investigation leads me to conclude that there appear to be a number of matters amiss in (Gisby’s) financial affairs,” Fowles wrote.
<div style="font-family:times;width:200px;float:right;text-align:center;color:#3366ff;font-weight:bold;margin:10px;padding:15px;font-size:25px;line-height:1.4em;">'You make a lot of enemies getting to the top and those enemies don’t go away'
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“CCRA is of the view that (Gisby) transferred under suspicious circumstances property with substantial values to his common-law spouse in the months and years leading up to his bankruptcy . . . CCRA is of the view that the statements and evidence provided by (Gisby) and his spouse are evasive, inconsistent and implausible.”
McCluskie said it is hard for police “to get to the guys at the top” in criminal cases because no one wants to co-operate with authorities.
“You make a lot of enemies getting to the top and those enemies don’t go away,” McCluskie said.
After his bankruptcy, Gisby bounced back, purchasing three condos since August 2010 in Vancouver’s trendy Yaletown and the Olympic Village for more than $2 million and a cabin near Lillooet, B.C., for $40,000.
Gisby was asked about how he could afford frequent trips to Mexico during his bankruptcy proceedings. He said his spouse bought the tickets and that he stayed for free with “friends.”
Asked for their names, he said: “Miquel, Mario and George,” refusing to provide surnames or addresses of any of them.
“They haven’t done nothing wrong, so you know, they’re friends, they’re good friends,” he said. “I go there, I stay, I relax, right? That’s what I do.”
<em>Postmedia News</em>

Homo sapiens, too, belongs to a family. This banal fact used to be one of history’s most closely guarded secrets. Homo sapiens long preferred to view itself as set apart from animals, an orphan bereft of family, lacking siblings or cousins, and most importantly, without parents. But that’s just not the case. Like it or not, we are members of a large and particularly noisy family called the great apes. Our closest living relatives include chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The chimpanzees are the closest. Just 6-million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters. One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother.

Homo sapiens has kept hidden an even more disturbing secret. Not only do we possess an abundance of uncivilized cousins, once upon a time we had quite a few brothers and sisters as well. We are used to thinking about ourselves as the only humans, because for the last 10,000 years, our species has indeed been the only human species around. Yet the real meaning of the word human is “an animal belonging to the genus Homo,” and there used to be many other species of this genus besides Homo sapiens. Moreover, as we shall see in the last chapter of the book, in the not so distant future we might again have to contend with non-sapiens humans. To clarify this point, I will often use the term “Sapiens” to denote members of the species Homo sapiens, while reserving the term “human” to refer to all extant members of the genus Homo.

Humans first evolved in East Africa about 2.5-million years ago from an earlier genus of apes called Australopithecus, which means “Southern Ape.” About 2-million years ago, some of these archaic men and women left their homeland to journey through and settle vast areas of North Africa, Europe and Asia. Since survival in the snowy forests of northern Europe required different traits than those needed to stay alive in Indonesia’s steaming jungles, human populations evolved in different directions. The result was several distinct species, to each of which scientists have assigned a pompous Latin name.

Humans in Europe and western Asia evolved into Homo neanderthalensis (“Man from the Neander Valley”), popularly referred to simply as “Neanderthals.” Neanderthals, bulkier and more muscular than us Sapiens, were well adapted to the cold climate of Ice Age western Eurasia. The more eastern regions of Asia were populated by Homo erectus, “Upright Man,” who survived there for close to 2-million years, making it the most durable human species ever. This record is unlikely to be broken even by our own species. It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be around a thousand years from now, so 2-million years is really out of our league.

On the island of Java, in Indonesia, lived Homo soloensis, “Man from the Solo Valley,” who was suited to life in the tropics. On another Indonesian island — the small island of Flores — archaic humans underwent a process of dwarfing. Humans first reached Flores when the sea level was exceptionally low, and the island was easily accessible from the mainland. When the seas rose again, some people were trapped on the island, which was poor in resources. Big people, who need a lot of food, died first. Smaller fellows survived much better. Over the generations, the people of Flores became dwarves. This unique species, known by scientists as Homo floresiensis, reached a maximum height of only one metre and weighed no more than 25 kilograms. They were nevertheless able to produce stone tools, and even managed occasionally to hunt down some of the island’s elephants — though, to be fair, the elephants were a dwarf species as well.

In 2010, another lost sibling was rescued from oblivion, when scientists excavating the Denisova Cave in Siberia discovered a fossilised finger bone. Genetic analysis proved that the finger belonged to a previously unknown human species, which was named Homo denisova. Who knows how many lost relatives of ours are waiting to be discovered in other caves, on other islands, and in other climes?

While these humans were evolving in Europe and Asia, evolution in East Africa did not stop. The cradle of humanity continued to nurture numerous new species, such as Homo rudolfensis, “Man from Lake Rudolf,” Homo ergaster, “Working Man,” and eventually our own species, which we’ve immodestly named Homo sapiens, “Wise Man.”

The members of some of these species were massive and others were dwarves. Some were fearsome hunters and others meek plant-gatherers. Some lived only on a single island, while many roamed over continents. But all of them belonged to the genus Homo. They were all human beings.

The earth of a hundred millennia ago was walked by at least six different species of man. It’s our current exclusivity, not that multi-species past, that is peculiar – and perhaps incriminating

It’s a common fallacy to envision these species as arranged in a straight line of descent, with Ergaster begetting Erectus, Erectus begetting the Neanderthals, and the Neanderthals evolving into us. This linear model gives the mistaken impression that at any particular moment only one type of human inhabited the earth, and that all earlier species were merely older models of ourselves. The truth is that from about 2-million years ago until around 10,000 years ago, the world was home, at one and the same time, to several human species. And why not? Today there are many species of foxes, bears and pigs. The earth of a hundred millennia ago was walked by at least six different species of man. It’s our current exclusivity, not that multi-species past, that is peculiar – and perhaps incriminating. As we will shortly see, we Sapiens have good reasons to repress the memory of our siblings.

Despite their many differences, all human species share several defining characteristics. Most notably, humans have extraordinarily large brains compared to other animals. Mammals weighing 60 kilograms have an average brain size of 200 cubic centimetres. The earliest men and women, 2.5-million years ago, had brains of about 600 cubic centimetres. Modern Sapiens sport a brain averaging 1,200–1,400 cubic centimetres. Neanderthal brains were even bigger.

That evolution should select for larger brains may seem to us like, well, a no-brainer. We are so enamoured of our high intelligence that we assume that when it comes to cerebral power, more must be better. But if that were the case, the feline family would also have produced cats who could do calculus. Why is genus Homo the only one in the entire animal kingdom to have come up with such massive thinking machines?

The fact is that a jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body. It’s not easy to carry around, especially when encased inside a massive skull. It’s even harder to fuel. In Homo sapiens, the brain accounts for about 2% to 3% of total body weight, but it consumes 25 per cent of the body’s energy when the body is at rest. By comparison, the brains of other apes require only 8% of rest-time energy. Archaic humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles atrophied. Like a government diverting money from defence to education, humans diverted energy from biceps to neurons. It’s hardly a foregone conclusion that this is a good strategy for survival on the savannah. A chimpanzee can’t win an argument with a Homo sapiens, but the ape can rip the man apart like a rag doll.

Today, our big brains pay off nicely, because we can produce cars and guns that enable us to move much faster than chimps, and shoot them from a safe distance instead of wrestling. But cars and guns are a recent phenomenon. For more than 2-million years, human neural networks kept growing and growing, but apart from some flint knives and pointed sticks, humans had precious little to show for it. What then drove forward the evolution of the massive human brain during those 2 million years? Frankly, we don’t know.

Another singular human trait is that we walk upright on two legs. Standing up, it’s easier to scan the savannah for game or enemies, and arms that are unnecessary for locomotion are freed for other purposes, like throwing stones or signaling. The more things these hands could do, the more successful their owners were, so evolutionary pressure brought about an increasing concentration of nerves and finely tuned muscles in the palms and fingers. As a result, humans can perform very intricate tasks with their hands. In particular, they can produce and use sophisticated tools. The first evidence for tool production dates from about 2.5-million years ago, and the manufacture and use of tools are the criteria by which archaeologists recognize ancient humans.

Yet walking upright has its downside. The skeleton of our primate ancestors developed for millions of years to support a creature that walked on all fours and had a relatively small head. Adjusting to an upright position was quite a challenge, especially when the scaffolding had to support an extra-large cranium. Humankind paid for its lofty vision and industrious hands with backaches and stiff necks.

Women paid extra. An upright gait required narrower hips, constricting the birth canal – and this just when babies’ heads were getting bigger and bigger. Death in childbirth became a major hazard for human females. Women who gave birth earlier, when the infant’s brain and head were still relatively small and supple, fared better and lived to have more children. Natural selection consequently favoured earlier births. And, indeed, compared to other animals, humans are born prematurely, when many of their vital systems are still under-developed. A colt can trot shortly after birth; a kitten leaves its mother to forage on its own when it is just a few weeks old. Human babies are helpless, dependent for many years on their elders for sustenance, protection and education.

This fact has contributed greatly both to humankind’s extraordinary social abilities and to its unique social problems. Lone mothers could hardly forage enough food for their offspring and themselves with needy children in tow. Raising children required constant help from other family members and neighbours. It takes a tribe to raise a human. Evolution thus favoured those capable of forming strong social ties. In addition, since humans are born underdeveloped, they can be educated and socialized to a far greater extent than any other animal. Most mammals emerge from the womb like glazed earthenware emerging from a kiln — any attempt at remoulding will scratch or break them. Humans emerge from the womb like molten glass from a furnace. They can be spun, stretched and shaped with a surprising degree of freedom.

This is why today we can educate our children to become Christian or Buddhist, capitalist or socialist, warlike or peace-loving.

Bad memories of trauma need not leave people emotionally scarred for life, according to neuroscientists who claim it is possible to erase feelings of fear or anxiety attached to stressful events.

In a breakthrough for the treatment of depression or post-traumatic stress, researchers at the Riken-MIT Centre for Neural Circuit Genetics in the U.S. have pinpointed the brain circuits that attach emotions to memories, and crucially, learned how to reverse the link.

They managed to “switch off” feelings of fear in mice that had been conditioned to feel anxious. It is likely that the same technique could be used in people.

“In our day-to-day lives we encounter a variety of events and episodes that give positive or negative impact to our emotions,” said Susuma Tonegawa, professor of biology and neuroscience at the centre. “If you are mugged late at night in a dark alley, you are terrified and have a strong fear memory and never want to go back to that alley. On the other hand if you have a great vacation, say on a Caribbean island, you also remember it for your lifetime and repeatedly recall that memory to enjoy the experience.

“So emotions are intimately associated with memory of past events. And yet the emotional value of the memory is malleable. Recalling a memory is not like playing a tape recorder. Rather it is like a creative process.

“The circuits seem to be very similar between humans and mice when it comes to memory formations and the emotions of memories. So a similar technology could be available for humans.”

Memories are made of many elements, that are stored in different parts of the brain. The context of a memory, such as the location and time that the event took place, is stored in cells in a different area of the brain than those cells that store the emotional response.

The team studied which brain cells were active when mice were experiencing a pleasant experience — a male mouse spending time with a female mouse — or a negative experience — a mild electrical shock.

They then showed that by stimulating the neurons associated with the opposite emotion they could reverse the response to the memory. Mice became more relaxed in situations where they had previously been anxious, and more fearful where they had previously been content.

“We found that we can dictate the overall emotion and the direction of the memory,” added Tonegawa. “We could switch the mouse’s memory from positive to negative and negative to positive.”

The brain cells are triggered by a technique called optogenetics which uses pulses of blue light to fire the neurons.

Tonegawa said the fact that the stimulation occurs on the surface of the brain makes it less invasive than previous methods.

Previous studies have shown that memories can change over time as recollections become more vague or entirely false memories appear.

Behavioural therapists often take patients back to a traumatic event and attempt to “rewire” their brains. But this is the first time that scientists have shown which brain circuits are responsible for emotions, and reversed them.

Richard Morris at the Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems at the University of Edinburgh said: “Molecular engineering is shedding light on our understanding of the underlying physiological networks of memory.”

If he looks into your eyes, it might just be love. If she looks down at your chest (or below), it’s probably lust. Where our eyes land may predict where our hearts end up, a new study by University of Chicago researchers suggests.

In two experiments that examined male and female students from the University of Geneva and their reactions to being shown black-and-white photographs of first heterosexual couples staring at each other and then attractive individuals looking into the lens of the camera, the individuals were asked to say as quickly as possible if they felt inklings of romantic love or sexual desire from looking at the images. Students were able to respond quickly, and researchers said that helps prove that the human brain can differentiate between the two feelings with exceptional speed. However, they noted that eye-tracking data from the two studies revealed marked differences in eye movement patterns, depending on whether the subjects reported feeling sexual desire or romantic love.

Where study participants’ reported feeling sexual desire, their eyes tended to move from the face and move around the entire body of the subject being examined. When they said they perceived romantic love in an image, they tended to stay fixated on the subject(s) face.

“Although little is currently known about the science of love at first sight or how people fall in love, these patterns of response provide the first clues regarding how automatic attentional processes, such as eye gaze, may differentiate feelings of love from feelings of desire toward strangers,” noted lead author Stephanie Cacioppo, director of the UChicago High-Performance Electrical NeuroImaging Laboratory.

But what does this all mean for the average person? Should we all aim to wear sunglasses on first dates, just to keep our options open? Well, probably not. But the researchers say that the possibility of applications in psychiatry and relationship therapy do exist.

“An eye-tracking paradigm may eventually offer a new avenue of diagnosis in clinicians’ daily practice,” said study co-author co-author John Cacioppo, director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at University of Chicago, “Or for routine clinical exams in psychiatry and/or couple therapy.”

Seven years ago, Staten Island, N.Y. woman Dina Check became alarmed when her young daughter began exhibiting rashes, infections and food sensitivities. Such conditions are not uncommon in infants. But Ms. Check settled on an unconventional diagnosis: Her child, she decided, had been “defiled” by the standard state-mandated vaccines against mumps, measles, polio, diphtheria and rubella.

According to a local newspaper account, Ms. Check believes that “the practicing Roman Catholic believes the body is a temple, and contends injecting vaccines into it ‘would defile God’s creation of the immune system [and] demonstrate a lack of faith in God, which would anger God and therefore be sacrilegious.’ ” Last year, she sued the city’s education department, which had barred her child from attending public school until she received her vaccinations.

The example of Ms. Check is worth studying, because her case exemplifies the way that many people come to embrace junk-science-inspired fears about life-saving vaccines: They imagine a link between the vaccination process and some childhood malady, and then let their emotions, rather than peer-reviewed medical science, guide their response.

Ms. Check’s claims to have had a medical revelation around this time in her life. “Disease is pestilence,” she claims, “and pestilence is from the devil. The devil is germs and disease, which is cancer and any of those things that can take you down. But if you trust in the Lord, these things cannot come near you.”

Not all anti-vaccine activists derive their phobias from religion. In some cases, they are swept up by Internet-peddled “alternative medicine” cults, which promote the idea that all-natural diets and holistic medicine can cure any ailment. Or they are conspiracy theorists who believe the medical profession is seeking to harm (or even exterminate) ordinary citizens. On the right side of the political spectrum, anti-vaccine activists tend to believe that any state-mandated program must have some sinister motive.

In other cases, they are simply gullible people who get their health information from Jenny McCarthy and other ignorant celebrities. Or they are followers of disgraced medical frauds, such as Andrew Wakefield, who convinced millions of parents that there was a link between vaccines and autism. (There isn’t.) In all cases, these people torture the available data to suggest that vaccines are harmful — or even that the underlying deadly ailments these vaccines prevent are somehow harmless (or, more ludicrously, beneficial).

With their propaganda and impressive-seeming array of selectively-picked data points, these anti-vaccine activists can convince some parents to endanger the lives of their children by failing to vaccinate them. Every Canadian pediatrician has stories about their dealings with parents such as this. It is absolutely heartbreaking that some children will pay with their lives because brainwashed parents are willingly turning their back on the most important public-health measure in recent human history. To this day, the WHO estimates, more than 2-million deaths are prevented through immunization measures. And even those who are not vaccinated benefit from vaccinations, thanks to the abundantly well-established scientific principle of herd immunity. In this country, the group Immunize Canada reports, “immunization has saved more lives than any other health intervention, and has contributed to the reduction in morbidity and mortality in adults, children and other vulnerable populations.”

As for Ms. Check, she and her fellow New York State vaccine opponents have just been dealt a major blow in a federal court: Last week, a judge upheld a New York City policy that prevents unimmunized students from attending a school when a fellow student is exhibiting symptoms of a vaccine-preventable disease.

Ms. Check had sought a religious exemption from the law. But the judge correctly declared that a parent’s ecstatic religious visions should not provide the basis for broad exceptions to life-and-death public-health measures. Conspiracy theorists, eccentric medical skeptics, and religious extremists may believe whatever they choose. But when it comes to policy-making, the state must rely on mainstream, peer-reviewed medical science.

For those Canadian readers who still entertain doubts about the safety of vaccines — including the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine that is most commonly targeted by fringe skeptics — I would urge them to consult the information at www.immunize.ca. Or simply consult your pediatrician. It’s a conversation that could save someone’s life.

“Our mother’s mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) seems to influence our own aging,” says Nils-Göran Larsson, professor at the Karolinska Institutet and principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging. “If we inherit mDNA with mutations from our mother, we age more quickly.”

While there are many factors that affect aging, one of particular importance are the changes that happen in the mitochondria, sometimes known as the cell’s “powerplant.”

Mitochondria contain their own DNA, and can undergo changes which have a significant impact on the aging process. The Karolinska Institutet showed that mDNA with mild damage — or mutations — inherited from the mother resulted in a faster aging process.

“Our findings can shed more light on the aging process and prove that the mitochondria play a key part in aging,” Larsson says. “They also show that it’s important to reduce the number of mutations.”

Scientists know that normal and damaged DNA is passed down from older generations, but it is still unknown whether or not damaged DNA can be rectified through lifestyle intervention.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/22/aging-well-you-can-thank-your-mother-for-that-new-study-shows/feed/0stdJackLaytonCompounds may reverse memory loss, symptoms of Alzheimer’s, could lead to a vaccine, U.S. and Canada studies findhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/18/compounds-may-reverse-memory-loss-symptoms-of-alzheimers-could-lead-to-a-vaccine-u-s-and-canada-studies-find/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/18/compounds-may-reverse-memory-loss-symptoms-of-alzheimers-could-lead-to-a-vaccine-u-s-and-canada-studies-find/#commentsFri, 18 Jan 2013 19:17:59 +0000http://life.nationalpost.com/?p=91807

It may be possible to reverse memory loss and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, a new U.S. study claims. In another recent study, researchers in Quebec say they are two years away from clinical trials on a vaccine against the illness, which would work by fending off the plaques of amyloid beta thought to cause the disease.

A compound called TFP5 has been shown to undo plaques and tangles in the brains of mice suffering with what researchers say is the mice equivalent of Alzheimer’s disease. After injecting mice with the molecule, symptoms are reversed and memory is restored— without obvious toxic side effects. Researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders in Bethesda, Md., caution that clinical trials on humans still need to be conducted to determine whether TFP5 would have similar effects on people suffering with Alzheimer’s, but they say the early results are promising.

“We hope that clinical trial studies in AD patients should yield an extended and a better quality of life as observed in mice upon TFP5 treatment,” said Harish C. Pant, Ph.D., a senior researcher involved in the work.

TFP5 is derived from the regulator of a key brain enzyme, called Cdk5. Over-activation of Cdk5 is understood to be a key driver of plaques and tangles in the brain, the major hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Now that we know that we can target the basic molecular defects in Alzheimer’s disease, we can hope for treatments far better – and more specific – than anything we have today,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., and editor-in-chief of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal, where the study was published in January.

A similar study, conducted by researchers at Laval University in Quebec working with researchers from GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines, is raising hopes that another compound, shown to have similar effects as TFP5, could lead to clinical trials within two years on an “Alzheimer’s vaccine.”

In the Laval study, mice were similarly injected with a molecular compound thought to be active in reducing plaque on the brain, MPL (monophosphoryl lipid A). “Significant removal” of plaque deposits, called senile plaques, was reported by the researchers, with elimination of 80% of plaques in the best cases.

“The study is interesting but its relevance to Alzheimer’s disease should be cautiously interpreted,” said Dr. M. Marsel Mesulam, a professor of neuroscience at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

“Killing amyloid alone may be fine for the mouse but not for the human,” he said.

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It turns out that first-year polar ice — long considered impenetrable to sunlight — can create ideal conditions for growing phytoplankton, the single-celled plants crucial to the Arctic food chain.

“It’s like the perfect environment,” says Arrigo.

The team was on a U.S. icebreaker smashing its way across the Chukchi Sea between Siberia and Alaska last July when equipment used to measure phytoplankton went “haywire.”

“We thought there was something wrong with the instruments,” Arrigo told Postmedia News.

Then the scientists made their first scheduled stop to take ice samples and got a good look at the ocean below.

“The water was completely green,” Arrigo said. “It was like pea soup.”

The farther they ventured into the ice-covered sea for their NASA-funded project to study ice, the more intense the under-ice algae bloom, says Arrigo, a veteran of many trips to the Arctic and Antarctic.

“It was shocking,” he says.

Phytoplankton were growing and multiplying at an extraordinary rate under an expanse of ice more than 100 kilometres across, the team reported Thursday in the journal Science.

Arrigo says records indicate it was the “most intense” algal bloom ever seen anywhere on Earth. “We had incredibly high concentrations of algae all of the way down to 70 metres in some cases,” he said.

First-year polar ice, which forms over just one winter, is becoming more common in the Arctic due to the recent retreat of much thicker multi-year ice.

While first-year ice was thought to be impenetrable by sunlight, Arrigo says it can actually create optimal growing conditions for algae.

Melt ponds tend to form on top of the ice as temperatures climb in June and July. And the shallow ponds act like lenses, allowing 50% of the light to penetrate through the ice into the water below.

At the same time, the ice screens out UV radiation that can stunt algal growth, he says.

Add the Arctic’s 24-hour summer sunshine, and phytoplankton populations under the ice can explode.

Another factor at play is a “striking” change in some Arctic winds in recent years, says co-author Kent Moore at the University of Toronto. More persistent easterly winds are bringing up more nutrients in the Chukchi Sea, which appears to have fed the under-ice bloom.

Thursday’s report deals with the bloom under the ice in the Chukchi Sea, but Arrigo suspects algae could be blooming under the ice in about 25% of the Arctic Ocean, including large parts of Canada’s North. Anywhere, he says, with shallow water, lots of nutrients and first-year ice.

As the Arctic warms, the scientists say under-ice phytoplankton blooms could become increasingly common, occur early in the season and consume nutrients that would normally feed open-water blooms.

“The real surprise is all these unanticipated consequences of global warming,” says Moore.

The shift may benefit some creatures, the researchers say, but others may have difficulty adjusting.

“If you’re a seabird planning to get to Chukchi Sea in mid-July to feed, you may be out of luck,” says Moore.

Postmedia News

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/07/arctic-bloom-record-phytoplankton-growth-found-under-arctic-ice/feed/2stdSmall melt ponds are forming over vast expanses of Arctic ice, like the one shown here in the Chukchi Sea between Siberia and Alaska in July 2011. Scientists say the ponds allow light to penetrate through the underlying ice and help explain the massive phytoplankton blooms discovered beneath the metre-thick iceCanadian consortium spending millions to develope disease-resistant treeshttp://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/06/canadian-consortium-spending-millions-to-develope-disease-resistant-trees/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/06/canadian-consortium-spending-millions-to-develope-disease-resistant-trees/#commentsWed, 07 Dec 2011 02:29:45 +0000http://nationalpostnews.wordpress.com/?p=116712

By Tom Spears

OTTAWA — A consortium of government and industry agencies is investing $4.2-million to decode genomes of pests responsible for destroying large areas of valuable Canadian forests.

The group will work on hundreds of varieties of fungus, looking for ways to distinguish helpful fungi (those that help trees absorb nutrients, for example) from tree killers.

Killer fungi include the type that causes Dutch Elm Disease.

“If we understand what makes a pathogen a pathogen, then we might be able to inhibit or prevent the pathogens from acting,” said Richard Hamelin, a scientist at the University of British Columbia.

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The main weapons — both still in the concept stage — would be either to develop disease-resistant trees or to conduct genetic screening of goods shipped into Canada to search for exotic diseases from other countries.

Many of today’s forest pests arrived accidentally in imports. For instance, the emerald ash borer beetle, currently in Ottawa, arrived in wooden shipping crates from China.

“What we’re trying to do is stop them from coming in,” said Hamelin. It would also be useful to certify that wood exports from Canada have been genetically screened and don’t carry pathogens that could spread to other countries.

The group could, in the future, analyze larger forests pests, such as beetles.

Postmedia News

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/06/canadian-consortium-spending-millions-to-develope-disease-resistant-trees/feed/1stdFotoliaDeath of the eponym: Naming diseases after doctors is a practice in declinehttp://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/02/whats-in-a-name-a-lot-if-that-name-is-hodgkin-crohn-or-alzheimer/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/02/whats-in-a-name-a-lot-if-that-name-is-hodgkin-crohn-or-alzheimer/#commentsFri, 02 Dec 2011 06:30:07 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=115253

Dr. Judith Hall is an Officer of the Order of Canada. She has headed up both the American Society of Human Genetics and the American Pediatric Society. She is often cited as a “world authority” in pediatrics and genetics, and in a medical career spanning 40 years she has put her name to 250 articles, 60 chapters and five books.

But the one legacy that will likely outlive all others is her discovery of the eponymous Hall-Pallister Syndrome, a rare and terrible condition in which babies are born with extra fingers, abnormal growths in the brain and without anuses — with death usually following soon after birth.

The discovery has made Dr. Hall one of Canadian medicine’s few female eponyms — researchers who have given their names to medical terms or conditions — and one of the only Canadian eponomists still alive. But she says she does not put too much stock in the distinction. “The honour … is the recognition by one’s colleagues that you did something useful from their standpoint — and of course that is an honour, even if short lived,” she explains in an email interview.

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Alzheimer. Parkinson. Hodgkin. The doctors themselves may have drifted into mainstream obscurity, but their names live on in medical textbooks, journals and obituaries around the world. Nevertheless, amid charges that medical eponyms are stodgy and outdated, there is a movement among modern doctors to eliminate eponyms from medical literature. But as doctors eschew the clunky and confusing names of the past in favour of more descriptive nomenclature, they may be taking some of medicine’s mystique with it.

There are definitely problems with eponyms. Look no further than Down syndrome. The 19th-century doctor John Langdon Down did not discover the famed genetic disorder, but he did assign it the name “mongolism.” In the 1960s, to purge medical journals of what was now an embarrassingly racist term (Down thought sufferers bore some resemblance to Mongols), researchers instead opted for an eponym — and falsely gave credit to Down. “It’s an example of everything that’s wrong with eponyms,” said Canadian medical historian Dr. Jacalyn Duffin. Doctors were trying to avoid a pejorative term and credit a founder, but they ended up doing “none of the above,” she says.

The most common complaint about medical eponyms is that they are shaped by politics, geography and influence — but never the actual disease itself. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is pretty self-explanatory. But the names Crohn’s disease and Cushing’s disease tell us nothing.

And, since many eponyms date to the 19th century, when pathology was on the rise in Europe, they often carry near-unpronounceable European names such as Abderhalden-Kaufmann-Lignac syndrome. “English is increasingly the world language of medicine, and having all these German terms clanging around is increasingly dissonant,” says University of Toronto medical historian Dr. Edward Shorter.

And then there’s the confusion that comes with the redundant overlapping of syndrome names. Plummer-Vinson syndrome, Paterson Kelly’s syndrome and Waldenstrom-Kjellberg syndrome are all the same condition, depending on whether the patient is in the U.S., the U.K. or Scandinavia.

“Eponyms lack accuracy, lead to confusion and hamper scientific discussion in a globalized world,” pronounced a 2007 editorial in the British Medical Journal. “We call on the editors of medical journals and textbooks to abandon the use of eponyms.”

Most controversially, doctors have begun in recent years a push to have eponym-status stripped from doctors with Nazi links. The most-cited example is Hans Reiter, the namesake of Reiter’s Syndrome, a type of arthritis that can cause painful inflammation in the joints, skin, genitals and eyes. As one of Germany’s first doctors to swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler, Reiter occupied a senior health position in the Third Reich during which he supervised medical experiments of concentration camp inmates, including one in which 250 Buchenwald prisoners died of typhus inoculations. After the Holocaust, Reiter was convicted at Nuremberg for war crimes.

For all those reasons, ever since the 1970s there has been a “concerted effort” to roll back eponyms, says Dr. Duffin. Modern textbooks will stubbornly omit even the most famous eponyms — such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, named for its most famous sufferer — in favour of its clinical alternative, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Tellingly, most of the greatest medical discoveries of the late 20th century are notably non-eponymous. Dr. Michael Gottlieb’s landmark 1981 discovery of a mysterious condition that attacks the immune system was given the name acquired immune deficiency syndrome — AIDS — rather than Gottlieb’s syndrome. Italian physician Carlo Urbani became a medical folk hero in 2003 after describing a highly contagious lung syndrome, just days before it killed him. Yet, we know his discovery only by the humble name of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

But for all their flaws, medical eponyms have a certain charm to them, says Dr. Duffin. Take Frank’s Sign (named for America’s Dr. Sanders Frank), a small crease in the earlobe that indicates cardiovascular disease or diabetes; “I suppose we could call it diagonal crease on your earlobe, but Frank’s Sign has a bit more elegance to it,” says Dr. Duffin.

Eponyms have found their way into the human body. Fallopian tubes, the channels that connect women’s ovaries to their uteri, are named after Gabriele Falloppio, a 16th-century anatomist also credited with the first “discovery” of the clitoris. The Circle of Willis, a small circle of blood vessels at the base of the brain, is named after Thomas Willis, a 17th-century English doctor who first proposed that the brain — not the heart — was the root of human thoughts and emotions.

And yet, just as frequently, the eponymous tradition has the awkward effect of attaching researchers’ names to what are effectively bywords for human suffering. It has been 105 years since Alois Alzheimer first alerted a council of German psychiatrists to his discovery of a new kind of dementia. Yet in Canada, an average of one person every five minutes is devastated to hear Alzheimer’s name uttered in a doctor’s diagnosis.

It may seem like a dubious legacy, but according to Dr. Shorter, the repellency of a disease like that is insignificant compared to the immortality at stake. “It was a great scientific achievement; I don’t think [Alzheimer] was at all bashful that his name came to be attached to a terrible fatal condition,” says Dr. Shorter. “We’re talking about science here; we’re not talking about human relations.”

Despite the occasional brush with fame, medical research is more often than not a particularly unglamorous line of work. Scientists labour unrecognized for decades in obscure laboratories, forgoing the generous salaries of their colleagues practising general medicine. “Immortalizing your family name is ample compensation for making a salary that’s only five digits,” says Dr. Shorter.

Jim Asperger, a top Los Angeles trial attorney, says he is not sure what relation he shares with eponym autism researcher Hans Asperger, but the association usually prompts a flurry of excited questions whenever he goes to the doctor. “I had ankle surgery a few years ago and there was a buzz among medical staff about my possibly being related,” he explains. Aside from that, the disease mostly helps pull extra traffic to his professional website.

Defenders of the eponymous tradition can take comfort that some names, while falling out of fashion, may never truly vanish from our vocabulary. Until they’re cured, Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Parkinson’s disease will remain enshrined in the names of multi-million-dollar foundations and charity walks across the country. Tourette’s syndrome is a mainstay of hack comedians (even if their representation of it is incorrect). James Langdon Down may have been a racist, but try telling Ontario’s Up About Down society that it should start calling themselves Up About Trisomy 21.

“In the post-modern era, there is a tendency to see medicine as a sort of applied science,” says Dr. Duffin. In a world where “clinical” has become synonymous with cold and unfeeling, eponyms provide one of the few remaining links between the white-coated doctors of today and the pioneers who preceded them: Secretive Renaissance brotherhoods who gathered around stolen cadavers to make history’s first sketches of human organs and obsessive researchers severed their own nerves or injected themselves with venereal disease just to prove a hypothesis.

“We are all just trying to comprehend the mystery of life and illness and we do it with fellow travellers,” says Dr. Duffin. “These names commemorate that.”

WASHINGTON — Using fungi to kill coca and other illegal drug crops, such as cannabis, would be a risky tactic, as there is not enough data about how to control these killer moulds and what effect they could have on people and the environment, according to a U.S. government study released on Wednesday.

The U.S. Congress asked scientists to look into whether some types of fungi, called mycoherbicides, could stem the flow of illicit drugs into the United States by killing the plants used to make cocaine, marijuana and opium.

But scientists from the National Research Council, one of the national academies of science that advises U.S. policymakers, said evidence about the fungi was sketchy and incomplete.

“There are too many unresolved questions regarding efficacy — whether they’ll really perform in real-time conditions, and whether they’ll be safe to non-target plants,” said Raghavan Charudattan, chair of the committee that prepared the report and professor emeritus in the University of Florida’s department of plant pathology.

“We did not see any data where a high level of control could be achieved,” he said.

Mycoherbicides are toxic fungi that have been used as an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical weedkillers. They can also be targeted to specific plants, and can reproduce themselves, staying in the soil for many years.

But using them on a large scale against illicit drugs has never been tested, Charudattan said. A fungus could kill anywhere from 10% to 60% of an infected drug crop. It could also fail completely because of too much rain or a drought.

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Available evidence also does not address the practical challenges of trying to infect drug crops abroad.

Farmers could easily sabotage any herbicide campaign by using fungicides to protect their crops or cultivate plants resistant to the fungi. Growers could also attack any low-flying aircraft used to spray their crops.

And it is unknown whether the fungi could morph into chemical compounds known as mycotoxins, which are harmful to people, Charudattan said.

Mycoherbicides could also only be used with the permission of a country’s government, which has proven a challenge in the past.

Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine, refused to approve such fungi to kill its coca plants when the United States proposed it in 2000.

The U.S. government has pushed experimentation with fungal pesticides in Colombia and other parts of Latin America and Asia as a way to combat drug crops.

In the 1990s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted research into the mycoherbicides as a replacement for the chemical fungicides that are sprayed from crop dusters on coca and heroin-poppy crops.

In the past, natural fungal epidemics have killed off poppy crops in Afghanistan and coca crops in Peru.

Congress required government scientists to further study mycoherbicides against illicit drugs as part of a funding bill for the White House drug czar’s office in 2006.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/30/killer-mould-just-too-risky-to-use-on-cocaine-crops-u-s-decides/feed/5stdA Bolivian coca grower holds coca leaves during a protest in front of U.S. Embassy in La Paz January 31, 2011NASA set to launch $2.5-billion car-sized Mars rover to search for life on the red planethttp://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/24/nasa-set-to-launch-2-5-billion-car-sized-mars-rover-to-search-for-life-on-the-red-planet/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/24/nasa-set-to-launch-2-5-billion-car-sized-mars-rover-to-search-for-life-on-the-red-planet/#commentsThu, 24 Nov 2011 14:52:51 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=112716

Launch scheduled for 10:02 a.m. EST Saturday

First mission since 1970s to look for organics on Mars

NASA rover Curiosity has plutonium-powered battery

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A nuclear-powered rover as big as a compact car is set to begin a nine-month journey to Mars this weekend to learn if the planet is or ever was suitable for life.

The launch of NASA’s $2.5-billion Mars Science Laboratory aboard an unmanned United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket is set for 10:02 a.m. EST Saturday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of the Kennedy Space Center.

The mission is the first since NASA’s 1970s-era Viking program to directly tackle the age-old question of whether there is life in the universe beyond Earth.

“This is the most complicated mission we have attempted on the surface of Mars,” Peter Theisinger, Mars Science Lab project manager with NASA prime contractor Lockheed Martin , told reporters at a pre-launch press conference Wednesday.

The consensus of scientists after experiments by the twin Viking landers was that life did not exist on Mars. Two decades later, NASA embarked on a new strategy to find signs of past water on Mars, realizing the question of life could not be examined without a better understanding of the planet’s environment.

“Everything we know about life and what makes a livable environment is peculiar to Earth,” said astrobiologist Pamela Conrad of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and a deputy lead scientist for the mission.

“What things look like on Mars are a function of not only the initial set of ingredients that Mars had when it was made, but the processes that have affected Mars,” she said.

NEW MARS ROVER

Without a large enough moon to stabilize its tilt, Mars has undergone dramatic climate changes over the eons as its spin axis wobbled closer or farther from the sun.

The history of what happened on Mars during those times is chemically locked in its rocks, including whether liquid water and other ingredients believed necessary for life existed on the planet’s surface, and if so, for how long.

In 2004, the golf cart-sized rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of Mars’ equator to tackle the question of water.

Their three-month missions grew to seven years, with Spirit succumbing to the harsh winter in the past year and Opportunity beginning a search in a new area filled with water-formed clays. Both rovers found signs that water mingled with rocks during Mars’ past.

The new rover, nicknamed Curiosity, shifts the hunt to other elements key to life, particularly organics.

AFP/Getty ImagesA NASA computer-generated of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight.

“One of the ingredients of life is water,” said Mary Voytek, director of NASA’s astrobiology program. “We’re now looking to see if we can find other conditions that are necessary for life by defining habitability or what does it take in the environment to support life.”

The spacecraft, which is designed to last two years, is outfitted with 10 tools to analyze one particularly alluring site on Mars called Gale Crater. The site is a 96-mile wide basin that has a layered mountain of deposits stretching 3 miles above its floor, twice as tall as the layers of rock in the Grand Canyon.

Scientists do not know how the mound formed but suspect it is the eroded remains of sediment that once completely filled the crater.

SKY CRANE DELIVERY

Curiosity’s toolkit includes a robotic arm with a drill, onboard chemistry labs to analyze powdered samples and a laser that can pulverize rock and soil samples from a distance of 20 feet away.

If all goes as planned, Curiosity will be lowered to the floor of Gale Crater in August 2012 by a new landing system called a sky crane. Previously, NASA used airbags or thruster jets to cushion a probe’s touchdown on Mars but the 1,980-pound Curiosity needed a beefier system.

“There are a lot of people who look at that and say, ’What are you thinking?”’ Theisinger said. “We put together a test program that successfully validated that from a design standpoint it will work. If something decides to break at that point in time, we’re in trouble but we’ve done everything we can think of to do.”

The rover, which is twice as long and about three times heavier than the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, also needed more power for driving at night and operating its science instruments.

Instead of solar power, Curiosity is equipped with a plutonium battery that generates electricity from the heat of radioactive decay.

Similar systems have been used since the earliest days of the space program, including the Apollo moon missions, the Voyager and Viking probes and more recently in the Cassini spacecraft now circling Saturn and NASA’s Pluto-bound New Horizons mission.

Radiation monitors have been installed through the area around the Cape Canaveral launch site in case of an accident, though the device has been designed to withstand impacts and explosions, said Randall Scott, director of NASA’s radiological control center at the Kennedy Space Center.

Meteorologists were predicting good weather for Saturday’s launch. Earth and Mars will be favorably aligned for launch until Dec. 18.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/24/nasa-set-to-launch-2-5-billion-car-sized-mars-rover-to-search-for-life-on-the-red-planet/feed/3stdNASA's Mars Science Laboratory missionA NASA computer-generated of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight.Being a jerk could be in your geneshttp://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/15/being-a-jerk-could-be-in-your-genes/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/15/being-a-jerk-could-be-in-your-genes/#commentsTue, 15 Nov 2011 11:45:10 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=109410

By Amy Chung

OTTAWA — Could being a jerk be genetic?

According to a new U.S. study, people with a certain gene trait are known be kinder than people without it, and strangers can quickly tell the difference.

“We were interested if our genes can predict what complete strangers think of us from as little as 20 seconds from seeing us,” said Aleksandr Kogan, lead writer of the study and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto.

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“In the last 10 years, there has been this emerging work that suggests that oxytocin — a chemical messenger in our brain — is involved, making us kind to one another, making us empathetic, making us more trustworthy,” said Kogan.

Oxytocin is sometimes called the “love hormone” because it often manifests during sex and promotes bonding, empathy and other pro-social behaviours.

Scientists at Oregon State University devised an experiment in which 23 couples, whose genotypes were known to researchers but not observers, were filmed.

One member of the couple was asked to tell the other about a time of suffering in his or her life. Observers were asked to watch the listener for 20 seconds, with the sound turned off and rate how kind, trustworthy and empathetic the participants were.

In most cases, the observers were able to tell which of the listeners had the “kindness gene” and which ones did not, said the findings in the current edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

People in the study were tested beforehand and found to have GG, AG or AA genotypes for the rs53576 DNA sequence of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene.

People who have GG are generally judged as more empathetic, trusting and loving.

“What we found was people with two versions of the gene, the GG, tended to make more eye contact, tend to smile more, tend to have more head nods and so on versus people with a GA or the AA,” said Kogan.

“So these non-verbal behaviours of trust, of compassion, these were what was driving complete strangers to judge these strangers or people in the video as more compassionate and kind.”

Those with AG or AA genotypes tend to say they feel less positive overall, and feel less parental sensitivity. Previous research has shown they also may have a higher risk of autism.

However, Kogan said our gene trait doesn’t necessarily determine how kind you are, stressing more research needs to be done on external factors like rearing and life experiences.

“There are going to be people with AA or GA who are extremely wonderful people and there are those people with a GG who are not going to be wonderful people because of these other factors . . . one of the big things about gene research is that there is no one gene for empathy, sympathy, kindness, or trust. There are many factors that ultimately influence whether we are kind, compassionate people,” he said.

It’s a sensational Canadian dinosaur find with echoes of the famous amber discovery from Jurassic Park: a “treasure trove” of 80-million-year-old feather fluff, trapped in tree resin from ancient Alberta, which appears to have come from several extinct species of birds and — potentially — non-flying, plumage-bearing dinosaurs.

Described by University of Alberta researchers as apparent “proto-feathers,” the specimens were encased in prehistoric amber collected years ago at the well-known Grassy Lake paleontological site in the province’s southwestern corner. The material had been left largely unstudied, until now, on the shelves of Alberta’s Royal Tyrrell Museum.

The possible examples of “dinofuzz” discovered by the U of A investigators, detailed Thursday in the journal Science, “may represent some of the earliest evolutionary experiments leading to feathers,” according to a published summary of the study.

Lead author Ryan McKellar told Science that while a number of the feathery deposits appear to have belonged to ancient waterfowl similar to modern-day grebes, others are best compared to proto-feather specimens from China that are associated with the fossils of non-flying dinosaurs of the Cretaceous era.

“We don’t absolutely know what they are, but we’re pretty sure what they’re not,” McKellar told Science, adding that the evidence points to a dinosaur origin for at least some of the minute, feathery filaments found in the Alberta amber.

A University of Alberta overview of the study said “the discovery of the 11 feather specimens is described as the richest amber feather find” from the waning days of the dinosaur, which vanished from the fossil record about 65 million years ago after a colossal meteorite strike near the Yucatan Peninsula off the coast of present-day Mexico.